Running into other dogs on a dog walk is a crap shoot. I am pretty unable to tell which dogs will cause my dogs to react, or which other dogs will react to mine, so I stay cautious, hold the leashes tight, and move or get ready to move off the path to the side. Many (?most) other people also do, which can create an “After you, Alphonse; no, after you, Gaston” situation, but we usually work it out. Some folks seem unaware (often related to looking at their phones and having earpieces in) and so I’m extra careful. And, while my dogs might react to small dogs and small dogs often precipitate the issue by barking a lot, I myself am more concerned about potential altercations with big dogs. There are a lot of both.
I try to anticipate what others are going to do, coming toward you or moving in the same direction. How soon, given their rate of speed, are they likely to catch up to you or you to them? Will they stop at a bottleneck, like, the entry to the park? It is not 100% but it helps. Groups of people, with lots of big dogs, are a particular problem, although I know their owners think their dogs are just peachy. One group has about 6 people and 6 dogs including a couple of (very well behaved) rottweilers and a curious off-leash small poodle. Nice folks but I try to keep my distance, and not run into them on a blind, narrow path (sometimes happens though).
Something I observed is that when the person/dog pair coming toward me steps off to the side before I do, but not very much to the side, just to the edge of the path, it seems to provoke my dogs; it happened twice yesterday, and almost a third time but with the same other dog (a lot of the trail is loops so can you pass people twice) but either they recognized it or it was more off the path. I wondered about this, and while I do not at all know I guess it is possible that they perceive a dog standing still right on the edge of the path as something like “lying in wait”. ?maybe? In any case, I have noticed that most of the time (nothing is always) moving past each other on opposite sides of the path, or maybe a little off it, is less likely to generate anxiety, barking, and lunging than one party standing still.
Timing and luck are a lot of it. This morning, we were
walking down the street opposite the entrance to the park, and the dogs wanted
to cross over. But, in addition to the truck coming down the street (it passed)
there were two women approaching the entrance to the park, a total bottleneck,
and moving remarkably slowly. And two people with two big dogs coming up from
behind. I tried to time it to stay ahead of the latter and hope the former
would move on into the park from the Z-shaped brick entrance. Nope. One of them
hung out there. And coming out of the park was a woman I know, a terrific and
wonderful person who has a big young dog that hasn’t completely mastered
non-aggression. But she went out of her way to cross the street and go a bit
down a side alley. And then inside was a man with a small dog that my dogs love
to see because he spends time petting them. But now we contributed to the
bottleneck! Not quite sure what purpose this entrance is supposed to serve…
Eventually, we got going into the park, and for the next 30 minutes only had a couple of widely separated interactions with other dogs and owners (including the ones staring at their phones with AirPods in who we had to negotiate around…)
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